No Time, No Game
by Yellow Radio
Summary: An AU set at the advent of the Accel World where Blank are invited to see if they can conquer the game.
1. Urban Legends

**This story, while set in Accel World's universe, has certain alterations on Accel World's canon - Primarily - The Colour Scheme does** _ **NOT**_ **function according to the official canon's fluff. The originators were not so limited in number. The unlimited burst zone is immediately available. The timeline is also different. This takes place around the origin of Brain Burst.**

Urban legends exist in this world like fallen stars. As human knowledge expands ever further we accept that the light of stars is no more a view of heaven than it is eternal. We yearn for something to believe in. Anything. Urban legends are desires, a desperate wish to believe that there can be something better than the mundanity of existence.

The legends of werewolves stalking the moors of Devon.

The legend of a secret society that exists right beneath our very noses, controlling every country's leaders from the shadows.

The legend that a human could become immortal by stopping time and living a thousand lives every second.

These were never more than fancy. Something for idle minds to dwell on, passing the time as their clocks ticked ever closer to a certain end. They existed only to ignite a passion for a decaying world in broken lives. Nobody believed in them. Not really. And so nobody ever questioned if perhaps, just perhaps, they might be true.

One such legend was born from a rumour. A rumour that was dismissed and discarded as too impossible to believe. A player who existed in countless games in the hallowed seat of 'Undefeated Champion'. A player whose record has never sustained a single blemish, erratic, unpredictable, and yet able to predict a million million permutations of the evolving state of play every second. A god of games who could see through the screen into the very soul of the player they were facing and know what they might do. A demon of games who could not be slain by the unstoppable tide of a horde of foes, regardless of their skill or their unscrupulous means. A force of nature, silent and merciless as the encroaching crest of a tidal wave.

Such a person was simply too ridiculous to exist.

And yet they stood atop the public leaderboards everywhere you might look. Their name fields ever empty. Blank.

The truth, however, is never so kind as myth.

Two siblings, both alike in mystery to a world in which they cannot live.

* * *

The elder brother unclipped the neurolinker from its port on his neck, running a hand through his hair and letting out a long sigh.

"We won. Somehow." His sister looked up to his chest, with his bedraggled shirt plastered to his skin. Her eyes never daring to meet his eyes. "Hey, Shiro? How long's it been now?" He asked, his eyes equally trained on the crown of hair silvery white hair, matted from days of sweat and neglect.

"Why does that matter?" Her head drooped as fatigue eventually washed over her. "It's not like... you've got anything..." She trailed off as her eyes slipped closed.

Sora trailed a long, angular, hand down to stroke her hair. "Come on Shiro, it doesn't do to forget the days. We might miss some event online!"

"Mmmm..." Shiro straightened herself again, drifting back into wakefulness just long enough to survey their darkened room, that would've been large had it not been  
filled ceiling to floor with ancient consoles and stacks of games from before the advent of the neurolinker. She still had hers clipped in. Shiro, being only ten was born on the cusp of when it became standard for all children to be implanted with one at birth. Sora, on the other hand, now eighteen had been one of the first trials. A prototype at the dawn of this new age. But it had never been enough for either of them. There weren't enough games in the world to sate these siblings. She counted the empty pots at her feet. "Four days." Her reply was short, succinct. Shiro was a quiet child. Bullied brutally she had been taught to fear people. Monstrously intelligent she had never been able to forget what she had learnt.

Sora nodded grimly. "We've only got a few hours then, before that 'War' raid." He passed a container of cheap, nutritious, bland food down to Shiro and took one up himself. Sora turned back up to the incessant glare of the computer in front of him and smiled, a hollow smile that reached up to eyes that reflected back the shining blankness of the screen.

* * *

"Full Dive."

The two players walked into the chaos of the battlefield as if the ceaseless crash of metal on metal was quieter than the last breath of a mayfly. Two masks floating amidst a sea of orcs, goblins, dark elves, and men of some Empire or other. They fought like composers orchestrating a symphony, gouging deep cuts in orc and man alike who shattered into pixels with a melodic tinkling. Beneath his mask Sora's eyes shone with the blood that the game, "Albion and Annwn" or something, didn't render, a manic grin flickering across his face. Shiro, beside him had a similarly ecstatic visage beneath her mask as she chanted spells and thrust her dagger into the chinks in the armour of those running at her, evaporating their health bars with a vicious wrenching sound that echoed only inside her head. This was their world. A reality created solely for them, with clearly defined rules, accepted boundaries, logical limitations. Everybody had a goal. This world was ruled by code. Predictable and certain.

For the space of a heartbeat both players froze. A light, musical chime sounded like a droplet in a perfectly still pond. A popup materialized in the very corner of their vision. They both resumed fighting as quickly as they had stopped, picking up their movements as mechanically as if the life of a soldier was the only one that they had ever known.

"Message?" Sora's voice was low, quiet, as if he didn't trust his ears. They spoke over their private chat, soundless to the enemies thronging around them. The siblings had eternally set their accounts as private. Visible, but you had to be on their friends list to send messages. This was new. Blank had an email account outside of games for accepting challenges and adverts about games but this was new. This was different.

"You too?" Shiro whispered back blasting the head off an orc whose player name only flashed up quickly enough to confirm his death before vanishing again.

"Who?" Sora's eyes were clear and sharp, detached from the battle.

"Friend?" Shiro's tone held a bite of accusation, subtle but Sora could taste it bitterly on the back of his tongue.

"Whose?" Shiro breathed again and contained the petulance in her voice.

"Yours?" Sora grimaced. Feeling like he'd been cruelly mocked.

"Open it." Those two words held a wealth of trust. They said 'I'll keep you safe' 'I won't let anyone touch you.' 'Trust me.' And Shiro did.

"Now you." She bit her thumb lightly as she closed the message again. Her brow furrowed and uncertain. Almost concerned. Sora obeyed and his message read.

* Blank

Have you heard the urban legend? A pair of siblings who could conquer any game. Care to test your legend against mine? I'll be waiting.

-The_Unbeatable_Game*

Sora broke into a laugh. Shiro knew they'd accept the challenge. Sora knew they'd accept the challenge. Blank could conquer anything.

* * *

The Empire fell. The elves vanished into dust and the orcs became nothing more than pixels. As the siblings looked up at the victory banner smiling a single knight teleported into the field, a crystal shattering between their fingers.

"Have you heard the urban legend? Of a game where time stood still and you could play forever? Where your entire lives became a game."

Sora tilted his head genially at the man. He'd always had an intrinsic sense for people's motives but he couldn't feel his.

"A game like that is too ridiculous to be true. Everyone has to eat, and sleep. Those are just the parameters of the shitty game we call life." Shiro nodded beside him.

"Yes. And you will. But what if I told you that you could live for two years between dusk and dawn?"

"We'd join it. Even if you're lying, there doesn't exist a game that Blank can't win. If you're just looking to challenge us Blank have an email."

"You think? Would you believe me if I hadn't found you myself? Would you believe me if I didn't know that you two were brother and sister? Would you really, honestly, discard all other games and live for me if I couldn't defeat you, here and now?" They said something outrageous with a light and casual tone and Sora laughed as he threw himself forward into the battle. Shiro's spell fired seconds after and both converged on the enemy simultaneously but they were both dodged as if they were no more threatening than a paper airplane. The figure brought their sword down instantly where Sora should have ended, but he deliberately tumbled and rolled out of reach coming back up on his feet a couple of metres away, Shiro on the other side of the player. Sora charged back in and engaged the player in a flurry of strikes, each being met precisely and blocked perfectly, chipping health off both players slowly, but surely. Even though Sora had a lot more health his enemy didn't seem concerned. Sora grinned beneath his mask.

"So. Little boy. If I beat you what do you say? Will you become mine? Devote yourself to my game and live an eternity trying to beat it?"

"I'll join your little game, and we'll beat it before you've even had time to notice. But what about when I kill you?" A thrust deliberately thrown wide, ignored, the knight stepped in to attack Sora's opening as he pushed himself back and away.

"Then you should come and play my game." Sora struck back again. "And if you're lucky, I may even tell you how I got my message through."

Shiro finished chanting the spell she'd been muttering all this time. Or rather, spells. The magic in this game could be delayed with the right keywords and as she uttered her last note six tier seven spells shot toward the knight's wide back.

He turned to face Shiro for less than a second, and then it was like he vanished. Sora's parrying with him was mostly just so that the pair could get a feel for his speed and reaction times, so Shiro could account for them. So that his attention lingered on the player in front of him. So that there was no way he could dodge. The AOEs would rip out all of his protections and the seekers would finish him. Sora held firm to stop his escape and then it was as if an entirely different player stood before them. The speed of his thrusts rocketed past what even Sora could keep up with and in the flurry of strikes he reached out a hand, through the space where Sora's blade had been less than a millisecond before, grabbed his shoulder and threw him between the knight and the spell an instant before it hit. The knight turned and stepped slowly toward Shiro, through the shattering pixels that were her brother. He hefted his sword as Shiro raised her dagger and slashed eight feints while drawing a dagger from his side and thrusting it into her neck. And she dissolved.

* * *

The pair respawned and the knight was sat with his helmet off, smiling at them. His avatar looked young, carefree, relaxed.

"I'll send you the install file as soon as I log off. And I'll warn you, because you impressed me, you're in for a rough night." He looked at his knees ruefully. "Seriously though, you actually forced me to panic! You might even be strong enough to be fun to play against. Someday, when you earn back your crown as the Demon of Games." He was laughing again now as his avatar disappeared.

Sora and Shiro each put an arm around each other and solemnly logged out. Blank didn't lose. They felt hollow, tired... mortal. Blank couldn't lose.

Sora covered his face with his hand but almost instantly the chime of The Message came through.

The siblings simultaneously opened the file and successfully installed it, a flash of fire and the words "Welcome to the Accelerated World" dropped on chains in front of them. Sora went to try the "Matching" button immediately but the game merely spawned a pop-up.

*Please wait. Brain Burst must collect additional data. Please, go to sleep.*

Sora and Shiro looked quizzically at each other, glancing at the time. Three in the afternoon. It had been five days. Shiro flumped heavily onto her side, resting her head on a warm, idle, console, and closed her eyes. Sora laid back in his chair.

Blank don't lose." He muttered to himself bitterly before closing his eyes as well, a hot tear dripping off his chin.

* * *

Sora saw a white world. Empty from edge to edge. Except for Shiro. Of course. She smiled sweetly up at him. Walked towards him. And whispered.

"You really are empty. Aren't you?" He looked at her and smiled. He knew this dream.

"Would you like to play a game?" He responded, smilingly broadly.

"Don't you think we're a bit too old for games now?" The young girl in front of him turned away, a stranger. "I think it's time we grew up Sora." She walked away. Faded away. Who? How? Why?

No.

She couldn't. Shiro wouldn't abandon him.

She promised.

She promised.

Everybody promises.

Everybody leaves.

Yes.

Everybody leaves. Shiro was bound to leave. One day.

Yes.

Sora sat in that white world. All alone. Hugged his knees and smiled for an audience that wasn't there. He opened his eyes and saw his hands turn white, as he blended into the landscape all around him. He called out and the silent void filled him from the outside in.

He could feel himself rotting from the inside out.

"Empty." The word had lost Shiro's voice but it was still echoing inside him.

Yes. He really was empty. Wasn't he?

He smiled at the void. Acting like there was anyone left to hide himself from. Acting like there was anything left to run away from.

And then he woke up.

* * *

Shiro lifted her head in that large room, small for all the games. She turned her eyes to her screen and saw the title screen of a new game. Then turned to look at Sora.

But there was no Sora.

Shiro called out for him, searched the room for all of its lack of hiding places, panic gripping her second on second. She started ripping out the lining of his chair, before huddling down into it. Whimpering. Crying. Begging the empty air to bring her brother back.

Didn't they say they'd stay together?

Weren't they going to stay together?

She curled up into a ball as small as she could get but the chair started rolling backwards and the door flung open. All of the locks they'd piled onto it melting away into a puddle on the floor.

The chair vanished and she fell hard against the ground with an audible thud. A woman came over to her, some strange look in her eyes. The noise of the world spun around her, cars and chatter and life. The sun beat down on her. Shiro pulled her arms in tighter across her heart, beating faster than a hummingbird in flight.

"Are you ok?" Shiro looked blankly up at her as if she were speaking in some language that even she didn't know. The strange woman started calling more and more people around her. Shiro shrank smaller and smaller but they wouldn't leave her alone.

They stroked her hair. They balled their fists inside her hair. They laughed. Their voices grew rougher and coarser. They lifted her off the ground and slammed her against a wall.

"Come on. You can talk can't you? You're not that dense are you!?"

Shiro closed her eyes harder, wishing it all away. Cursing the shitty world that had stolen her brother away.

And then she woke up.

* * *

Shiro awoke to Sora holding her tightly in his arms.

"Shiro..." He buried his face in her hair.

She buried her face in his shirt, tears streaming down her face.

"Don't leave." They both whispered together.

*Ping*

Two notifications tones chimed.

They opened the message first.

* Blank

Unlimited Burst.

-The_Unbeatable_Game*

Then they checked the system notification.

*Brain Burst - Ready to Play.* Flashed before their eyes.

They sat together, on Sora's chair as they booted up the game.

"Unlimited Burst" Their voices were almost sing-song, a lullaby, a trance-like prayer whispered to an unborn God.

* * *

The game world broke out over their vision. It looked like the hollowed out inside of a tree, they could see a bright light shining in from the gaping hole where their front door had been behind them.

Their bodies had been replaced.

Sora stood almost six feet tall, his body a vaguely humanoid arrangement of thin panes of amber. Some were backed with a reflective material while others were perfectly clear. His face reflected the image of anything that looked at it and his eyes were picked out in glass, a hollow clarity to their paleness. His fingers were long and bent and swivelled like caterpillars around his mirror-backed thumbs and palms. He snaked his fingers into his menu and found the name "Amber Mirror" reflected in his eyes.

Shiro stood barely four foot tall, with hollow gaps where her eyes should have been and small rounded stumps where her legs and arms had been. Her avatar had no mouth or hair and her body was almost completely seethrough. She looked like she'd been forged of frosted glass. When she opened her menu she found the name "Blank Space" staring back at her.

They looked at each other, and stepped toward the exit into the game, each smiling with faces that could not smile.


	2. A Challenge

The world outside was verdant, a sea of mangroves towering hundreds of feet above their tallest cousins in the real world. Their canopies were thick enough to blot out most of the swamp beneath while the siblings leapt down across the tangling branches. Each followed their own path, coming down around twenty five metres apart amidst the coiling roots and thin shafts of light.

The two landed on the bank of a narrow river, weaving its way down what would once have been the street.

"So, my sister," he paused. Partly for effect, partly to lazily twist his clustered finger panes into the path of a stream of light. Preparing. " I do believe I'm one up at the moment?" It was a challenge, not a question. Shiro knew it, Sora knew it. Over a hundred thousand matches, over thousands of games, the pair stood steadily level at a draw. Neither ever deviated more than one up or one down. It wasn't a question. Neither of them could ever lose count. "It seems to be nothing more than a simple fighting game to me. A touch of RPG to keep people entertained. Nothing too complicated. You ready?"

"Ready." Shiro lowered her stance slightly as Sora's articulated fingers seemed to flow out from his palm as he extended them toward her. They were both in that peculiar situation they faced in every new game they played. They often started with a match against each other, get a feel for the controls, a situation where they were allowed to lose and learn. One of them was at least. Shiro didn't have that option today. They were facing both a complete unknown, an enemy they had never faced before, and absolute familiarity. Sora was Sora. Shiro was Shiro. She could depend on that.

Shiro charged, her short limbs moving her far too slowly for her liking. This was good. Knowledge. Every second she got a better handle on her parameters. Sora's fingers started twisting into complex patterns and from small lenses on the edges of his fingers, bouncing around his palm and passing through screen after screen light was focussing and gathering. The distance was almost closed when he turned his thumb towards her. A mocking thumbs up gesture. She slipped to the left in an instant and his laser sliced through open air and burned a deep scorch mark into a tree across the river. Sora's other hand turned and Shiro arrested her momentum as swiftly as she could. The laser dug through the ground an inch ahead of her. A deep slice into the mud. She moved off again. She was close.

She was close. Too close. Sora jumped for the tree to his left. Turned his fingers the wrong way to try and get climb back up. Shiro's avatar seemed to be slow. A bruiser? If that was the case she'd hit hard. His body felt frail. He wasn't sure he could take it and he'd just been showing off his ranged attacks. He still had his special move but he didn't want to use that yet. Knowledge is power. The less he let Shiro know the more he had up his sleeves. He pulled against the small fragments of amber he'd dug into the tree and they slipped through. Small, neat, cuts lined the tree. He tried contracting them panes into the thicker, more finger like, state he'd had them in climbing down but they didn't have the strength to dig in when clustered so tightly. There had to be a middle ground. He started pushing them out again, just a bit, but it was too late. Shiro slammed her rounded club of an arm into his abdomen. The amber pane she hit cracked and he buckled over, swamped by the overwhelming need to be sick even though he had no stomach to throw up. That hurt. What the hell!? Why does a fighting game even need pain!?

Sora buckled over and Shiro raised her rounded arm again over the back of his head. His body stretched out, the joints in his legs spreading out and contracting rapidly as his fingers had done. Sora darted forward. Fast. She chased. Not fair. He got to be so fast when she was this slow. His fingers were spinning wildly in front of him before he locked them into place and turned them in her direction. The lasers sprang into being, faster this time than they had before. Thinner. One sliced through her leg blooming through it as the frosted glass refracted the light, passing through and out the other side. It was like he'd stuck a needle of fire through her leg. She stumbled taking half a second to right herself and resumed her charge. She looked up, directly into the crack on her brother's stomach. This game was painful.

His lasers weren't stable, he'd forgone some of the focusing to get them out faster so they weren't at full strength but he needed to win this without staying in one place for too long. He couldn't shoot on the move though. He needed the light to stay where it was to focus it. Every time he moved it was time he lost finding the light paths again. The right angles. It took too long! As Shiro closed again and he moved to dodge out of the way something stopped him.

Shiro activated her special move. The scenery behind her brother vanished a white wall stretched into being ten meters wide, ten tall with walls spreading in parallel lines towards her. A hollow space that left his only escape past her. The only special move that had been in her character's list other than standard punch and club. "Tranquillity". An isolated space just for her. According to the description from the outside it they didn't exist unless you were looking at the entrance. It didn't last long though. She surged forward.

He was trapped. He tried to dodge left under the solid lump of glass approaching him. He was scared. He didn't want to feel that pain again. It was only a swift flare, not persistent like it would have been in the real world, but the fear stayed with him. His ability to coil and shift his body let him get low down to the ground but it wasn't enough to beat his sister's impossible reflexes. Her arm fell across the pane that stood in place of his face and smashed it into the mud. He could feel it breaking, like his cheekbones, nose, and forehead had shattered together. His lungs that weren't there seized, panicking for air, and he screamed. His fingers reached up toward his face and felt the shards falling free before, again, the pain dissipated. He reached his hands up stretching those sharp claw-like panes over his sister's head, leveraging himself up and raking them over her at the same time. They barely made grooves into her hard exterior but it was even. They chipped away at its smoothness and he was running again as the white panes of blankness faded into fog. He spared a glance at his health bar, the small lump of red throbbed at him. This was bad.

It felt like he was pulling knives through her scalp. She tried to swat his fingers away but before her stump connected he was gone, sprinting away from her. His legs coiling and unspooling in perfect time with his strides. It was like this body was what he was meant for. Like this was really the brother she had always looked up to. She looked to the mud where splinters of his face had fallen and gave chase. This would be over soon. She knew it. It had to be.

He stopped in the widest shaft of light he could find and activated his special ability. He felt his body move beyond his control. The panes shifting positions, crawling over him into a new configuration. It was like an endless procession of insects crawling across his skin. He didn't feel remotely human anymore. Couldn't move. "Shattered Reflections" shot beams of light out in fifteen directions, a circle capturing Shiro in the middle and a new "Amber Mirror" began forming at each location, lights focusing, reflecting, firing randomly. He couldn't aim them. He felt his consciousness drifting as the other bodies formed, seeing simultaneously through each and every set of eyes. It strained his mind, registering the input of thirty individual eyes all looking at the same picture from another angle. Then all at once there was only one input again, a different copy to the original became the real version, snapping back into a human form and the others started falling apart, shattering into pixels as they hit the wet mud. Shiro hesitated. Only just more than a second but he saw it. She'd been hit. She'd been hurt. This would be over soon.

She felt like her heart was beating a thousand times a second after the light pierced through it. The lancing pain fogged her mind and when it cleared her senses were all in a panic. Her health was low but his special ability was gone too. She moved at roughly three quarters of her top speed, giving him precious seconds. Precious illusions. His fingers started that twining, twisting, motion through a shaft of light which started focusing, bouncing, concentrating, she sped up, moved right, down, left. Weaved through where he would shoot. Where Sora would shoot. The avatar was known now. And she knew Sora. After the beams fired the seconds he didn't have caught up with him and she smashed both arms into him in different places, one through his chest, the other through the pane that looked like it served as his right knee. He screamed. Shattered into pixels and was replaced by a small marker. She dismissed the pop-up awarding her ten Burst Points and sat beside the marker holding her legs.

Drawing again. The balance of Blank was still in place. Or, as in place as it could be. Considering.

* * *

Sora respawned. His body didn't hurt anymore. It wasn't dark anymore. Or cold. He placed his arm around Shiro and they hugged each other close.

"Well done Shiro." She could imagine a smile on his face. Half congratulatory , half self deprecating. The usual smile when she won. "You did well." But... this time there was a tinge of something else in him. She remembered the pain. Knew games could simulate it. They'd dived in enough games together to flirt with the mechanic, conquer it. Master their pain. This was different. There were laws in place restricting pain. Some of the early games had left people with permanent sympathetic nervous damage. Underground games, like this, didn't have to follow those rules. The smile that couldn't show up on his face felt like there was an element of anguish to it. Or fear? She could understand that...

"The pain. It's scary here." They were siblings. They were Blank. There was no reason to leave it hanging over them like an unspoken pall.

"Don't worry my little Shiro! I'm here to protect you. We're Blank. The two of us together, there's nothing we can't beat. No game we can't win. A little thing like pain isn't enough to hold us back!" Sora declared it boldly. Banishing away the dread that gnawed away inside him. He knew why it was so far up though. It was scarier than Shiro thought. In the real world pain is always an indicator that something is going wrong. You're in danger. It's a warning system. He understood why pain was at the same level here as it was in the real world. No. Higher here. When he died he felt numb. Not the numb sensation of sensory deprivation, like some games. "The Keeper of the Dungeon Vault", for example, made the dungeon you were supposed to protect from heroes a gray, textureless, expanse that you could only vaguely drift through, deaf to all sounds, shadowing the heroes as they plundered the treasure and cheered. A caricature of ghostliness. Brain Burst felt like a caricature of death. It didn't start out as numbness. The pain of the last attack lingered longer than the others. As it ebbed it stole away a part of his consciousness every second. The world kept its normal colour for a while before slowly fading into a liquid expanse of oppressive darkness. Every time his mind processed the routines for breathing it simulated the sensation of icy water flowing into his mouth and nose while the warmth drained from his legs and arms. He tried to scream and he couldn't. It felt like he was choking. Like he was dying. Then it suppressed the automatic sensation of breathing. It couldn't affect his actual body. He knew that. Rationally. His brain panicked. He fought as hard as he could to draw a breath and then he stopped. He lost all sensation in his body in the space of a heartbeat. It didn't feel like he was seeing darkness anymore. He couldn't feel its oppressive weight on his chest making every breath a labour. It was all just gone. There was no HUD. No countdown ticking off the minutes in the hour before he respawned. Nothing. He didn't know how long it took for him to believe he was really dead. There was no way he could know but when light flowed back into the world and he rematerialized next to Shiro it felt like more than a month that he had been trapped in that paralyzing darkness.

He understood the pain in this game. It was a warning system. An indicator that something was going wrong.

He made a solemn vow to himself then and there that Shiro would never experience that. Not if he could help it.

She smiled inwardly. He was his usual animated self again. He'd only been different for a second and if she let herself focus on the cheer in his tone, the casual, carefree twisting of those shards of amber as his arm draped more comfortably around her shoulders she could almost believe she'd imagined the change she thought she'd seen. Almost.

"So then Shiro, shall we get going? We've got a game to win." They set off, clambering experimentally over the mangrove roots, playing with their new bodies.


End file.
